But those aren't possible in LT because warp drives are so large that they only fit on the largest ships (battleships and carriers), or so was my understanding from what Josh has stated in the past. What I'm kind of thinking of is a specialized 'pod' which carries information from point to point.

So, here's another question. How do we determine how far apart two systems are? Do transmissions enter and exit wormholes at the speed of light? If so, wouldn't communication across 20 connected wormhole links still be fairly quick because the distance traveled is actually very short?

BFett wrote:
What I'm kind of thinking of is a specialized 'pod' which carries information from point to point.

if its a physical container that moves FTL it needs an FTL drive.
if the drives are big the container is big.

BFett wrote:
So, here's another question. How do we determine how far apart two systems are? Do transmissions enter and exit wormholes at the speed of light? If so, wouldn't communication across 20 connected wormhole links still be fairly quick because the distance traveled is actually very short?

yeah, topological distance through wormholes is very short.

if you have a (series of) wormhole link(s) with infrastructure along the connection it should be very fast
more or less instant + a small delay per station/ship to be traversed (maybe modified by better comms equipment)

with some wibbly wobbly interstellar FTL comms as fallback which take longer and depend on the line distance between the sending and receiving systems

JanB1 wrote:Yeah, but I'm talking about quantum teleportation and the instant transportation of information. Isn't that like...a thing? I thought it was...

What you are talking about is quantum cryptography. And information encrypted with cryptography is still bound to the speed of light.

No, it's not a thing. In fact, it's specifically made impossible by the laws of physics. Information can never travel faster than light.
Quantum teleportation means you can bring two things in the same, undetermined state, move them apart, and when you measure them (measure, not put in a state!) the other will be in the same state when measured. Which is not useable to convey information.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:the five minutes were Flat's idea, not mine. ask him

Flatfingers wrote:
Question: should it be five minutes for orders to reach all non-local fleets, regardless of distance? Or an additional five minutes for each "hop?"

Actually, it was you who suggested "(for example) five minutes" to the idea that orders to a ship outside the commanding character's star system should take some amount of time per "hop."

I still like the idea that no such magic communication is possible, and you have to use physical couriers -- ships or drones -- to move information among star systems. This creates the need for, and value of, a courier system as a strategic resource.

RTS players will probably prefer magical universal instant messaging. That's cool; it's just not as interesting to me as a gameplay system.

Flatfingers wrote:
I still like the idea that no such magic communication is possible, and you have to use physical couriers -- ships or drones -- to move information among star systems. This creates the need for, and value of, a courier system as a strategic resource.

which is easily circumvented and questioned by players "why doesnt my ship automatically drop comms drones at every wormhole?"

because you need exactly two trivially small probes per wormhole and thats it, one for every direction of coms.

unless you want the player to sit there for minutes per wormhole traversal its still practically instant

FTL comms allow talky, but no data transfer.
Short range comms allow talky, and inter-fleet sensor sharing. (eg in system)
Data can only be transfered by selling the physcical flash-drive it sits on.

This keeps the exploration part of the game there, so that you actually have to fly back with scanned data packages.
It means fleets benefit from scouts in the same system.
It means you can control fleets at infinite distance, and give orders to subordinates.

It also prevents far away systems needing to be hydrated, as there is no way to transfer data like market conditions.
Or non-coarse locations of ships cause sensors aren't shared.

Best of all worlds.
Rooted in a little sci-fi, and a little reality.

Wormholes and Jumpgates just allow you to transfer data-packages around easier, like ALL commodities.

what keeps me from putting a thousand idiots with buttons connected to beepers with individual tones and letting them transfer data?

what keeps me from using an actually useful encoding sheme?

what keeeps me from just saying "thats not data! thats just audio!" and transmitting highly compressed stuff instead of digital audio?

Gameplay mechanics! <insert insult here> (im not in a good mood today)

But the basic idea is that you say the FTL is low bitrate. 1bps is enough for maximum compressed english to come through at a word per second.

Not allowing data transfers over short range is purely stylistic choice. Say that interference prevents data transfer if you want.
I mean, its already faster to transfer massive stockpiles of data via microSDs in a truck than via the internet.
There are only so many bands of RF used for comms, and only so many packets of data per interval of time with CSMACA. CSMACD can do things faster *IF* you have physical connections with limited to no interference.

And for things like scanning data? Petabytes or more of data? Yeah, that's being handed off in person.

Flatfingers wrote:
Is there some part of this delay concept that makes other human beings happy that isn't solved for you with an "instantaneous universal communication" option?

because im totally not suggesting delay mechanics for all communications.
before you accuse me of obstructionism you may actually read what i wrote?

and what im suggesting doesnt even decohere into nothingness even when you set the per-hop delays to zero because you still have to have communications capable installations in every hopped system
and doesnt encourage cheesing it with spamming assets through every single system you pass through.
but only placing assets along actually used routes and have the slowish direct-line FTL comms for routes which arent often used.

FTL comms allow talky, but no data transfer.
Short range comms allow talky, and inter-fleet sensor sharing. (eg in system)
Data can only be transfered by selling the physcical flash-drive it sits on.

This keeps the exploration part of the game there, so that you actually have to fly back with scanned data packages.
It means fleets benefit from scouts in the same system.
It means you can control fleets at infinite distance, and give orders to subordinates.

It also prevents far away systems needing to be hydrated, as there is no way to transfer data like market conditions.
Or non-coarse locations of ships cause sensors aren't shared.

Best of all worlds.
Rooted in a little sci-fi, and a little reality.

Wormholes and Jumpgates just allow you to transfer data-packages around easier, like ALL commodities.

This sounds good to me.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

Silverware wrote:
Rooted in a little sci-fi, and a little reality.

like, an epsilon of reality :V

what keeps me from putting a thousand idiots with buttons connected to beepers with individual tones and letting them transfer data?

what keeps me from using an actually useful encoding sheme?

what keeeps me from just saying "thats not data! thats just audio!" and transmitting highly compressed stuff instead of digital audio?